ST. LOUIS – It may be hard for Yankees fans to appreciate this right now, of course, because they are too busy bemoaning the dissolution of Boston’s 86-year championship drought. But in many ways, they are about to receive one of the great gifts of their lifetimes.

They are about to see what a rivalry really looks like, and sounds like, and tastes like. Up close. From the inside.

Like it or not, the Red Sox and Yankees are now equals in every way. Yankees fans want to still point to the 26-1 disparity in championships since 1918? Well, Red Sox fans will volley right back with the fact that the Red Sox are 1-0 since 2000.

They are even on that count. They are even in terms of talent, regardless of how many new faces show up or depart from either roster. They are even in terms of relative prosperity, and popularity. Yes, for the first time in nearly a century, you can call these teams “rivals” and not have to qualify your remark one bit.

Which will make this winter one for the books.

And next spring.

And that’s before we arrive at April, which will surely elevate this baseball feud to a level it has never before seen, which might seem preposterous. In a preliminary schedule released last month, baseball made an inspired decision: the Red Sox and Yankees are slated to open at Yankee Stadium on April 4. And then they were scheduled to do it all again the very next week, on April 11, at Fenway. It’s possible, a baseball source said yesterday, that could be reversed by the time the official schedule comes out.

Which makes little difference.

Because what we know is, regardless of the date, the Red Sox will receive their World Series rings with the Yankees in the house, looking on from the opposing dugout. And that will surely be the toughest ticket in the history of Boston baseball, given that the ones that would have been, for Games 6 and 7 of this abbreviated World Series, never took place.

The possibilities are as endless as they are delicious, of course. Can you imagine Pedro Martinez jogging out of the third-base visitor’s dugout, wearing Yankees gray, to accept his ring? Can you even imagine the slander that the enterprising T-shirt vendors at Fenway Park will be peddling? And as for the fans . . . well, you can imagine that they’re already resting their vocal chords for the all-out assault they’ll be engineering on Opening Day.

Maybe this makes you sick as a Yankees fan, every bit of it, even the thought of any of it.

But it shouldn’t. Because right now, in New York City, for the first time in 48 years, 2005 will bring an honest-to-god baseball rivalry into the boroughs. No longer will Yankees fans have to rely on the manufactured pap of a Yankees-Mets rivalry that only existed for the five ever-so-brief days when they played in the World Series in 2000. And no longer will Yankees fans be able to use history as a crutch when viewing the Red Sox.

No, for the first time since Giants fans and Dodgers fans used to get after each other 22 times a year, 11 times in Brooklyn, 11 times in Manhattan, New Yorkers will experience all the highs, all the lows, all the glories and all the guttural hatreds of an actual wire-to-wire, start-to-finish baseball rivalry. You got a taste of what it was like the last few weeks, and it was pungent, like drinking baking soda.

But it can grow on you, if you let it.

The Red Sox are no longer pitiable patsies. They are no longer targets to be laughed at. They are – get used to saying it – World Champions. For 86 years, it was the notion of a rivalry that fueled these games. Now, it’s a full-blown one. Next April, we’ll get to see what that feels like, and looks like, and tastes like. From the inside.

Only 157 days to go.

(p. 114 Metro)

Back in the Bronx

According to the yet-to-be-released Major League Baseball schedule, the Yankees and Red Sox will open the 2005 season at The Stadium with a three-game series, beginning on Monday, April 4. One week later, the two teams will continue their pleasantries at Fenway Park with another three games, starting Monday, April 11.